The other teams that feature most prominently as contenders for the 2013 NCAA championship all have been assigned at least a little bit of heavy lifting in the early weeks of conference play: an end table here, a deck chair there. Louisville has been like the friend who offers to help with the move, then grabs the nearest box of pillows.

While Indiana faced Minnesota, Duke went to N.C. State and Michigan visited hostile territory to renew its spillover rivalry with the Ohio State Buckeyes, while Arizona traveled to the Oregons and Kansas got a home test from testy Iowa State, the Big East Conference fed No. 3 Louisville a diet of Providence, Seton Hall, South Florida. The Cards polished them off by an average of 23 points.

Rick Pitino's Cardinals face a tough challenge in UConn. (AP Photo)

That ends now.

On the first Big Monday of the 2012-13 college basketball season, ESPN will treat us to Louisville’s visit to Connecticut at 7 p.m. This did not seem as though it would be a particularly daunting road trip when the schedule was conceived, given that players abandoned UConn during the offseason as though it were radioactive and Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun retired, and given that the Huskies (12-3, 2-1) had no inspiration to play well beyond their own pride and personal ambitions. They are forbidden from playing in the postseason. But new coach Kevin Ollie has inspired his players to play to win, anyway, and the Cardinals will have to cope with that in Hartford.

And then things figure to get really hard. Saturday afternoon, Louisville (15-1, 3-0) will be visited at 4 p.m. by No. 7 Syracuse (16-1, 4-0), a team fairly new to the road, that might be playing without No. 2 scorer James Southerland and that Louisville has owned, relatively, for much of coach Rick Pitino’s time in the Big East. The Orange were expected to present the Cards with the only serious challenge to their Big East title ambitions. Whether they are good enough to manage that seems to be in question now, but no other league member has as imposing a collection of talent.

Louisville doesn’t have to apologize for the cushy start to the league schedule. As the polls stand now, there are six games against ranked teams remaining including three in a row approaching the end of the regular season. And that’s without taking into account what may await them in the Big East Tournament. But it will be fun to watch the Cards get back to fighting in their own weight class.

Sunday silence: If you thought football was through impacting your basketball viewing the moment Notre Dame at last was rescued from the bottom of Alabama’s boot, well, turns out that wasn’t entirely true. College football is over, but the beast of the National Football League has a few more breaths to draw this winter.

As a result, you’ve basically got a five-day “work week” ahead of you. Fridays always are light, of course, and with the NFL conference championship games scheduled for Sunday there’s almost nothing going on that day: eight games total, two involving ranked teams: No. 5 Indiana is at Northwestern (1 p.m., BTN) and Clemson visits No. 20 N.C. State (6 p.m., ESPNU).

Appointment viewing: Is it going to be like this every Wednesday night in the Mountain West? Last week the league opened its schedule of appearances on the CBS Sports Network with a stirring matchup between UNLV and New Mexico that kept lots of college basketball lovers up past their bedtimes. And they’re at it again, this week with the No. 24 Rebels (14-3, 1-1) traveling to No. 16 San Diego State (14-2, 2-0) for a 10 p.m. matchup.

The Mountain West is not the best league in college basketball, but it’s closer than anyone might have imagined when preseason practice began. And it might be the most fun conference of all. They’re one of the few leagues running a double round-robin format, for starters. To date, they have contested eight conference games. Five of them were decided by five points or less or in overtime.

Game to watch: N.C. State (14-2, 3-0) at Maryland (13-2, 1-1), Wednesday 7 p.m., ESPN2. While top-ranked Duke sorts out which of its players will be on two healthy legs and who might replace those that are not, N.C. State has to do its best to take advantage of the Devils’ misfortune. Right away, that means trying to gain what might be one of the more difficult road wins available in the ACC.

Rivalry to watch: No. 4 Arizona (15-1, 3-1) at Arizona State (14-2, 3-0), Saturday 2:30 p.m., FSN. The Wildcats and Sun Devils will play only one game each this week, but that should be enough for both. It hasn’t been often that this in-state Pac-12 matchup has carried great consequence, but the Wildcats continue to work toward Final Four contention and the Sun Devils are endeavoring to prove they belong in the NCAA field.

Hidden game to watch: No. 13 Creighton (16-1, 5-0) at No. 23 Wichita State (15-1, 4-0), Saturday 4 p.m. ESPN2. How hidden can a game be if it’s played between a couple of ranked teams? A fair question, to be sure, but often terrific games in less glamorous conferences can sneak past us all. So you’ve been warned. Indeed, Syracuse and Louisville are playing on ESPN at the same time, but on my cable system—and probably yours—the two are one channel apart. Just press the up and down arrows on the remote, and you’ll be fine.